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PR-ICE, 10 CENTS 







The 
Root of 
All Kinds 
of Evil 



By 



REV. STEWART SHELDON 



PUBLISHED BY 

Charles H. Kerr & Company 

(Co-operative) 
56 FIFTH AVE., CHICAGO 



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THE ROOT OF ALL 
KINDS OF EVIL 



rf / ** 



BY S 

REV. STEWART SHELDON 



CHICAGO 

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 

1903 




rTHfc LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 1 

1903 * 

Copyright fcmry 

cuss a, XX( 



S 



♦*5 



COPYRIGHT, 1903 
BY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 



We are told that Dr. Blank in one of his lectures in 
Boston said, "We are not here to preserve the existing 
order of things, but to establish the Christ order." 

With this thought in mind, I will try to show that 
"Money is a False Circulating Medium." 

We all admit that the world which we inhabit is God's 
world, that He made it, that the world's inhabitants are 
God's children, that He created them and endowed them 
with whatever powers they possess. 

This being true, it follows that all mankind are of the 
same great parentage, and God being perfect and of infinite 
benevolence, power and love, must have made a world 
capable of meeting all the needs of all His children, touch- 
ing their highest well being in every respect. 

Also God in making such a world with such a people, 
His own children, must wish them to use the world's re- 
sources and the powers with which He has endowed them, 
so as to meet all their highest possible attainments in all 
good things. 

Hence it follows that every person of the great brother- 
hood should have enough of the very best of the world's 
products to meet his highest possible needs, touching his 
health, strength and vigor, physically, mentally and mor- 
ally, so far as the products of the earth can do this, the 
Christian experts in science, if you please, being the 
judges as to the amount and kind of sustenance essential 
to such an end. 

Does any one say, Impossible! — the earth cannot pro- 
duce enough such things to thus meet the needs of all 
God's children? 

But such an assertion would be a reflection upon the 
Maker of the world. 

It would be saying that an all powerful, an all loving 
God had constructed a world in which only a part of His 
children could be supplied with sufficient in the simple 
matter of food alone, so as to secure the best results. 



2 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

The rest of the Father's children, half of them say, or a 
third of them, more or less, as the case might be, of the 
great household, must suffer because of such a lack.' 

And what kind of a world would such a world be? 

What kind of a being would such a being be, making 
such a world, incapable of so much as yielding sufficient 
food suited to the best conditions of all his children? 

What kind of a father would such a father be — the 
universal Father, Our Father, as we say in the Lord's 
prayer? 

Very different, most assuredly, from any conception 
that we ever have, or that is ever taught us of the God of 
the Bible, an infinite, all powerful, all merciful God, our 
heavenly Father. 

No, the world surely is capable of meeting this demand 
for every one of the Father's children. 

And if such is the case as to needful food, it is equally 
so as to needful clothing, a needful home, suitable amuse- 
ments, comforts in general, attainments, education, every 
thing in fact, in order that each of the Father's children 
may make the most of himself possible. 

What, of every person in the world, does some one ask? 

Yes, of every person in the world. 

But isn't that Altruism or Socialism of the most un- 
adulterated character? I imagine I hear some one else 
ask. 

Well, call it whatever you please, it is simply sanctified 
common sense, and in full and perfect accord with the 
teachings of the greatest sermon that was ever preached, 
Christ's sermon on the Mount. 

It harmonizes also with the other teachings of our 
Lord as well as the divinely inspired teachings of His 
chosen Apostles after Him. In other words, it all accords 
with the teachings of the Floly Spirit, the representative 
of Christ, promised by our Lord just before He departed 
in visible form from the world. 

But in order to the existence of proper civic rules in 
society, it follows by necessity that every person of the 
great fraternity or brotherhood of the race should do his 
part toward producing such a state of things. There 
should be no drones in the hive, no idlers in the camp, and 
no favoritism shown to one or neglect to another. Here 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 3 

comes in the mighty significance of the all-embracing com- 
mand, supreme love to God, and the love of one's neighbor 
as the love of one's self. 

With such principles governing in the civic relations of 
men, — I do not say the Christian relations according to 
the highest meaning of the word Christian, but the civic 
relations — where would be the poverty, the ignorance, the 
degradation, the misunderstanding, the scheming, the 
overreaching, the competition, the fighting, the war, the 
fire and blood and death, the spirit which says and pre- 
dominates in the world today, "Every man for himself and 
the devil take the hindmost"? 

You would need go out of the world, surely, to find 
such things. You would look in vain for poverty, hunger, 
and starvation, the latter slaying its millions from year to 
year in some parts of the world, one million a year on the 
average in India, within the domains and during the reign 
of the good Queen Victoria, several millions in the very 
heart of the Celestial Empire so-called, within a few years 
past. And our own country is by no means exempt from 
the sad list. 

No, and with proper civic relations governing in the 
body politic, you would find no more from fifteen to 
twenty thousand strikes, involving more than fifty thou- 
sand large establishments within a few years past in lauded 
America: no more 3,000,000 idle men in the land, as 
there were not long ago from no fault on their part, 
which means that from 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 persons 
were left in a state of want: no more hungry children 
crying for bread, and hungry fathers and mothers crying 
with still louder cry because they could not get it for them, 
and this in the rich heritage flowing with milk and honey 
and overflowing with the fruits of the soil, the one single 
product of corn alone in one year's time, said to be 
2,750,000,000 bushels, not to speak of other things 
brought forth in the most munificient quantities, out of one 
little corner of the world for the Father's children. And 
yet, as it now is, some of these children suffer and die 
for lack of food, while others are lavish in their wanton 
luxury and gigantic wastefulness, because they fail to com- 
prehend or else selfishly disregard the teachings of the 
heavenly Father, teachings enunciated still more plainly 



4 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

by the Son, and with still greater emphasis, if possible, by 
the Holy Spirit. 

Yes, truly, no child of God in God's world, with honor- 
able civic relations governing- men, would be left to want 
as to these various needs, food, clothing, a comfortable 
home, or anything pertaining to his earthly good and his 
highest earthly well-being as a private individual. 

The same must be true also touching the united com- 
munity interests of mankind. These relate to the state 
and state powers. 

And what is the state, and what are the obligations of 
the state? Well, I am a part of the state, and you are an- 
other part of it. All the inhabitants of the commonwealth 
are the state. 

Here is a great joint stock corporation, a vast copart- 
nership, having mutual interests and mutual obligations. 

It means that I, that you, that all of us together — we, 
the state — should control our mutual interests and not 
delegate or attempt to delegate them away to a party or 
clique, to a king, a queen, emperor, president, or governor, 
who can not from the very nature of things do the essential 
work as well as we can do it. 

If I, as an individual, and you as an individual, have 
obligations resting upon us from which we cannot right- 
fully shrink touching our individual brother man, so have 
we, as a part of the state, the great body politic, obligations 
as they pertain to the community at large from which we 
cannot rightfully shrink. 

Hence I as a part of the state, and you the same, and 
all of us together, should control, or help control the food 
supply, the heating supply, of the city, the village, the 
home, the postoffice management, the express manage- 
ment, the farms, the mills, the ships, the stores, the shops, 
the telephones, the telegraphs, the railroads, the street cars, 
the bicycles, and other transit appliances, as they may be 
needed, the air ships and flying machines, after a little it 
may be. Thus would the thousands upon thousands of 
wicked monopolies, and combines and trusts and sweat 
shops, and competitions, and blood-sucking politicians, and 
other heartless scoundrels, and all the base things and base 
men and measures connected with the universal public 
needs be swallowed up in one great benevolent, humani- 
tarian state power, my power, your power, our united 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 5 

power, comparatively unselfish, because there would be 
but little place for selfishness to play any part in such an 
arrangement. 

But all of this is impossible while money, which has no 
intrinsic value, never has had and never can have, is made 
the circulating medium of the world. 

Yes, money, the "Summum Bonum," the "Sine qua 
non," of the great seething, throbbing, restless world, the 
"Almighty Dollar," the great Mogul God of this planet — 
money, for which men labor and fight and die, the thing 
worshiped and adored by so many — money, the love of 
which is the root of all kinds of evil, as the sacred writer 
so long ago affirmed — money, the false standard, the cir- 
culating medium of the nations, is the bane of the nations. 

As the circulating medium among men, if I had it in 
my power I would banish it from the world at once. 

If I only could, I would smite it out of existence with 
a quick lightning blast in a second. 

Let us look at it a moment. 

What is the cause of the great unrest of the world at 
this time, perhaps as never before, all things considered, 
in view of the age in which we live, and the population of 
the globe to-day? Money in some form or other, beyond 
a question. 

Why do men shut up their hearts of compassion toward 
their fellow men, and jostle each other in the markets, 
and try every conceivable device to get the start of each 
other in business, in commerce and trade, on the exchange, 
in Wall Street, in the great gigantic schemes and the little 
schemes, rife and rampant in almost every community in 
the world? 

The same answer as before must be given: Money! 

Why do men gamble in so many ways, and swindle and 
defraud, and devour each other, rob houses and stores and 
banks, and railway trains, and squabble and debate for 
months at a time in legislative halls, and even in courts 
of so-called justice, which too often become anarchistic, 
oppressive and tyrannical? 

Because of money again is the answer. 

Why is it that United States Senators and high officials 
of trust are so often bribed and wicked schemes framed 
into laws like the nefarious "Sugar Turst," involving mil- 
lions upon millions, or the "Standard Oil Company," rep- 



6 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

resenting other millions, or the "Reading Coal Combine," 
said to have extorted more than forty millions from the 
people within a few years past? 

Money, both on the part of the bribers and the bribed, 
tells the secret of it all. 

Why was my friend, the former Governor_of Dakota, 
as he told me himself, offered many and many a time when 
chairman of the committee of Ways and Means in Con- 
gress, half a million of dollars for his simple signature to 
some measure to be brought before the great law-makers 
of the land? 

Money was what these men wanted, and so they were 
willing to pay liberally for the influence of such a man. 

Why was another friend said to have been offered $75,- 
ooo for his vote on the Tariff question, over which there 
was such prolonged and vituperous wrangling a few years 
ago? 

Money again was the cause of it all! 

Why is the Rum power in this land so mighty in 
politics? 

Why does it pour out its treasures like water that it 
may be sustained by law in its devilish trade? 

Why does it give us a row of its hell-houses which, 
if brought as close together as one block in the city is 
to another, would reach a longer distance than from Bos- 
ton to San Francisco and return? 

Why does it lure into the drunkards' ranks the mighty 
army of two million men in this country yearly, and give 
us besides, 15,000,000 moderate patrons of the accursed 
saloon? 

Money still is the answer, for it thus receives a large 
revenue while it puts our most favored land as we are 
wont to call it, in league with these destructive, God defy- 
ing charnal houses of Satan and worse than wastes in the 
awful business, we are told $900,000,000 annually. 

Ah, yes, it is Money that does it. 

Why are such things tolerated when the men supposed 
to know assure us that over 90 per cent of the crime in 
this land, the murders, robberies, house burnings, burglary, 
political chicanery, corruption in courts and piracy by land 
and by sea, come through this nefarious evil? 

It is money that leads to it through the manufacture 
and sale of the liquid poison. 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 7 

Why do men in this boasted land of the Pil- 
grims, home of the brave and free, in lauded America, 
send ship loads of the accursed stuff to still farther im- 
brute the already imbruted men of the dark continent? 

Because they want the money which comes from it. 

Why should our nation receive a yearly tax so enorm- 
ous on beer alone that one dollar per barrel added to 
the same would increase the tax $35,000,000, to say noth- 
ing of car loads upon car loads of other liquors shipped 
into Cuba and the far away islands of the Pacific, caus- 
ing a greater destruction of life than the fevers of the 
climate and the deadly conflicts of the battle-field? 

Money, money — the desire for money — is the answer 
to all such questions. 

Why for want of proper appliances, as we are told, 
on the part of great railroad corporations, wealthy, but 
wanting more, should 2,500 people have been killed on 
our great public thoroughfares in a single year of late, 
besides 22,000 injured, many of them terribly mutilated 
and rendered helpless for life? 

Money, money is still the answer. 

Why do the trolley companies in the city of Brook- 
lyn, as we are told, carry on with impunity, and often- 
times in defiance of law, their murderous business, as we 
see by a late reporter referring to the 150th slaughtered 
victim, rather than have suitable fenders and speed in- 
dicators or other appliances for the defense of the general 
public, the same thing being true more or less in scores 
of other cities? 

A desire for larger dividends — more money — is the 
answer. 

Why were the stealings and embezzlements in this 
country said to have been during two years not long since, 
more than $35,000,000? 

It was money that caused it, as everybody knows. 

Why do young men in New York City alone — and 
what is true there is measurably true in hundreds of other 
cities — lose in gambling with long practiced professional 
sharks in this kind of business, millions upon millons 
every year, impoverishing themselves and bringing distress 
to helpless wives and dependent children? 

A desire to get money through this gigantic and devil- 
ish trade is still the answer. 



8 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

Why do the daily papers come to us teeming with 
accounts of crime, as I counted no less than 70 in one 
paper, a very fair average from morning to morning? 

The large number of this black list is instigated, as 
the records show, by the hope of gaining money through 
the unlawful deeds thus committed. 

Why do we have such contentions and wars of words 
and heated debates and violent accusations between the 
different parties of the day, during the great political cam- 
paigns that once in about so often sweep over the land 
like a destructive tornado, so that one suddenly coming 
from some other planet would certainly think that the 
country must quickly go to the dogs unless victory upon 
the approaching election should perch on such or such 
a banner of the numerous forces in the strife? 

Money in the great majority of instances if not uni- 
versally is at the bottom of it all. 

Why should two men noted for nothing of special 
merit only their superior physical muscle after long train- 
ing, convulse the whole country and put to their wits end 
the governors of two of the states to prevent a brutal 
encounter and a savage knock down between two such 
bullies, fit exponents of some barberous age and country 
instead of denizens of renowned England and boasted 
America in this late period of the world? 

Because of money, involved in the betting of hundreds 
of kindred spirits, money, to be obtained by it. 

Why should England, till only a short time since, Eng- 
land regarded as one of the greatest Christian powers 
of the world recognize in its dominions, the Islands of 
Zanzibar and Pemba on the coast of Africa, the status 
of slaves, of which there were said to be 140,000, over 
130,000 of whom were stolen by raiders, most of them 
being left absolutely to whatever treatment or disposition 
their heartless Arab masters might see fit to give them, 
a life of helpless infamy, cruelty and death even, and all 
this in the year of grace 1896! 

It was all because England feared a commercial revo- 
lution; in other words a loss of money by protecting and 
releasing from bondage those thousands upon thousands 
of poor people, having as good a right to their freedom 
at the time as Queen Victoria or Mr. Gladstone or you 
or I or any other person in God's world had. 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 9 

Money was the cause of it all! 

Why did men only a little while since, men worth 
their millions dare to violate the Lord's day, distract the 
peace of community and contrary to all justice and law 
forcibly take possession of a public highway, tear up the 
road bed with a great army of workmen and begin the 
foundations of a street car line, men too who were said to 
stand at the very front of what is generally considered 
respectable society, doing this on God's day and with 
such precipitation for fear that some other corporation 
might get the start of them in attempting the same brazen 
faced violence? 

Because of money, greed, a wish for more, did they 
become thus open and bold in crime, being encouraged 
by other men of greed holding offices in the city govern- 
ment, so that the people trespassed against were practically 
helpless! 

Yes, money prompted them to this high handed deed, 
defiant of both God and man! 

Why do the railroads in this country, as a rule, if not 
invariably, set at naught the Sabbath, one road as an in- 
dication of how it is generally, having in its service 25,000 
employes, requiring armies of men to run trains and do 
other work on God's day as much as on any other day, 
an open violation of the command, "Remember the Sab- 
bath day to keep it holy," the same largely true 
of the street car service also, requiring two millions of 
men in this country, it is said, to work 7 days in the week 
the year round? 

The desire to make money tells the secret of it all. 

Why is there such an increasingly intense warfare as 
seen in the past few years between capital and labor in 
all parts of the world, indicating that the results ere long, 
are sure to come from it, a thousand fold more terrible 
than were those of the French Revolution, unless by some 
means the contentions may be stayed rather than increased 
year by year? 

Money, money is the cause of it. 

Why do the commission men of the city of the Golden 
Gate combine in dumping boat-loads and car-loads of fruit 
and vegetables into the ocean off San Francisco, when 
the supply for the time being chances to exceed the more 
than usual demand, the producers and senders of these 



IO THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

products being at the mercy of these veritable sharks in 
these dumpings, when hundreds and thousands of poor 
people would be glad to get at moderate rates these 
fruits of the all merciful Father's bestowing, thus wantonly 
withheld from them and wickedly wasted? 

Because these men want more money, and expect the 
better to fill their coffers by such a criminal destruction of 
food that should go to God's poor rather than the monsters 
of the deep. 

And then, the brazen effrontery of these men to send 
to those whose products they have thus wasted, "Your 
last shipment of fruit was dumped into the bay, enclosed 
find bill of freight on the same." 

Oh money, money, what a perverter of reason and con- 
science and righteousness it may and often does, become! 

And who dares say that anything in the wide world 
productive of such gigantic wrongs as we have seen, is 
the proper circulating medium of the world? 

Then also, when we look at the vast number of com- 
petitors and speculators, the superabundant stores and 
markets and middle men and shops and mills, book- 
keepers, clerks, accountants, drays and delivery wagons, 
ten times as many of each class as are required, but for 
the false standard that men have set up we see more of 
the needless waste continually going on as the result of 
the way by which we are blunderingly and blindly led, 
contrary to our highest good and greatly enlarged hap- 
piness. 

Look for a moment at the matter that for several 
years past has been so much in the wind as we say, the 
clamor for free silver, which as well as gold, it is claimed 
should constitute a part of the circulating medium of the 
world, and see the inconsistency of making money in any 
form the standard. 

A few years when this country numbers 200,000,000 
people, as it doubtless will a century hence, and the other 
nations of the earth shall have gained in like manner, on 
the same principle there may be a demand for free cop- 
per, or brass, or lead, or iron, or anything else, as a part 
of the circulating medium, the stamp of the United States, 
or of England, or France or Germany, or Russia being 
on it as a sign of recognized money, and how inconsistent 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL II 

the whole thing, as well as the fact that trouble must go 
hand in hand with money, or anything else not of intrinsic 
worth as the circulating medium of the nations. 

A cubic foot of gold says J. A. Conwell weighs 19,000 
ounces and is worth nearly $400,000 as money at the 
mints. If one of our western settlers should discover that 
his quarter section farm was so rich in gold that^ when 
brought to the surface it would be equal to five inches of 
the precious metal over the entire one hundred and sixty 
acres, it would when coined into money, have a purchas- 
ing power almost without limit. Such a man could buy 
all property, both personal and real, on our continent, 
including Canada and South America. He could cross 
the ocean and purchase England, Ireland, and the con- 
tinent of Europe. He could then buy China, Japan, and 
all Asia and Africa. Still his purse would not be emptied. 
He could search the seas and buy all the islands. The 
whole earth would be his. His purse would still be rich 
in gold. Not one half of his money would be absorbed. 
He would still have more money than all the rest of 
the world. 

He also says that within a few years gold may be a 
relic of the past, or it may be so plentiful as to rival 
copper or brass in household utility. Chemists tell us 
that the oceans contain 60,000,000,000 tons of gold. This 
is equal to $25,000,000 worth to every man, woman, and 
child now living on the earth. 

How absurd to make any material of which there is 
a possibility of such things, the circulating medium of 
the ages! 

Even as it now is, the whole commercial world is every 
now and then, and more or less all the time, like a great 
seething caldron, foaming and sputtering. The men who 
stir the fires and watch the turmoil are full of perplexity 
and fear, though they claim to feel perfectly sure that 
their standard leads absolutely heavenward while the truth 
is, it leads in just the opposite direction. 

The mere shipping to England from this country, or 
from England here, a little more gold than usual from 
time to time, almost and sometimes quite, produces a 
panic among the great business firms of the nations, and 
shows the inconsistency and trouble necessarily attendant 
upon such a fictitious standard as money, which is made 



12 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

the great absorbing, overruling passion of the world, as 
seen in the astonishing fact that while the Armenian Chris- 
tians, our brethren in European Turkey, were being 
slaughtered by scores of thousands and the houses of 
our missionaries plundered by Mohammedan Turks, and 
their school and college buildings gutted and burnt by 
heartless murderers, the great nations of the earth, pre- 
eminently our own, were wrangling over finance, bonds, 
a bit of land in some far-off region of the continent, and 
with hardly a protest coolly witnessed the savage butchery 
of men, women and children, money, in some form, being 
at the bottom of it all. 

Then again look at the inconsistency of such a stand- 
ard, in the fact that it allows seventy-one per cent of 
the money of this country to be owned by nine per cent 
of the families of the country, leaving only twenty per 
cent of the small margin of money left, to the millions 
and scores of millions, ninety-one per cent of the people 
even! 

More than this. Thirty thousand of the inhabitants 
of this country out of 75,000,000 or more possess one 
half of the money, the circulating medium of the world. 

At the same ratio, it may happen with such a stand- 
ard, that 30,000 people in this country may soon .prac- 
tically possess all the money there is in the land. 

Nay, more. A much less number than this may pos- 
sess it all. What does it signify? That nearly all the 
people of America might become absolutely dependent, 
so far as money is concerned, upon a few plutocrats of 
the land; 200,000,000 of the Father's children subject 
in this way, which might mean little less than slavery, 
to a small clique, no better or wiser or more deserving, 
and in all probability not half so much so, as the hundreds 
of millions over whom they might dominate. Even now 
we are told that of the 75,000,000 of our people only 
about 1,000,000 buy whatever they please without think- 
ing of the cost. 

Only about 3,000,000 buy carefully and cautiously, 
having money enough for some luxuries if obtained with 
care not to overrun the income, while with 66,000,000, 
life is but a mere bread-and-butter battle. 

It all shows the great inequality of things to-day, not 
to surmise what it may be to-morrow, and the marvel of 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 13 

it is that the mighty majorities of the world who are 
under the ban have endured it as long as they have! 

And then what about the fiat money, as the gold bugs 
are pleased to term it, and which they so vigorously de- 



nouncer 



But is it not all that kind of money? 

Here, for example, are twenty nickels, equal to one 
dollar. 

The materials of which those nickels are composed, 
are worth for carpet tacks, or shoe nails, or something 
of that sort, not far from seven and a half cents, leaving 
just ninety-two and one-half cents fiat money in those 
twenty nickels. And so it is with all kinds of moneys which 
are used as the circulating medium of the world. 

Yes, indeed, it is fiat money, more or less, the world 
over. We read of late a good deal about tainted money 
and the like, and a good many men seriously question 
the propriety of receiving such money for educational 
purposes and missionary work, but is not every dollar 
which is a part of the false medium of the world tainted 
money? 

If not, why not? I beg leave to ask. 

Being a false medium, is it not coined in Satan's work- 
shop at the very best, and if there is any fitness in using 
it at all as a standard of exchange, why is it any worse 
to use it after it has passed several hands, than to use 
it fresh from the mint, and directly from the Arch Enemy 
himself? 

Such are some of the sad results that come from the 
false standard of the world, touching the civic relations 
between man and man. The tendency of the thing is all 
wrong. 

The temptation to young and inexperienced life is 
most dangerous, for the environment of youth decides 
the ambitions and the character of manhood as a rule. 

Bring up a child in the atmosphere of the profane, 
the lewd, the sneak thief, the drunkard, the murderer, and 
ten to one when he comes to manhood he will be just 
what these influences have helped make him. 

But give the child an opposite environment, and you 
may expect a different harvest in the days of his after life. 

So we say, take away from the world the false stand- 
ard, money, and substitute in its place the true standard, 



14 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

subject to none of these evils, and you will introduce a 
healthful environment that will develop the noble, the 
loving, the divine qualities with which every man, created 
in the image of God, is more or less endowed. 

The old theory of man's nature being totally depraved 
and devilish is a false theory, long since exploded. No 
one believes it now, however sincere but mistaken the 
good fathers with less light than we possess may have 
been in promulgating such a sentiment. The greatest 
thing in the world is Love, and men and women naturally 
love each other, naturally love their children, love to be 
happy and to see others happy, love to laugh and see 
others laugh, love society and pleasant things, and pleas- 
ant surroundings, the artistic, the bright sunny face, the 
cheery voice, the tidy dress, the blooming flowers, the 
gaily plumed birds, the sweet music of the human voice. 

These are only a few of the things that man naturally 
loves, all of which shows something of the Godlike 
principles with which he is endowed. 

Now let man's environments be such as to foster and 
cultivate this love, and by divine grace he will soon come 
to love the all-lovable, the very God of Love, in whose 
image he was created, as expressed in Jesus Christ, the 
sun and center, and substance of all true love, such as 
we cannot fully grasp in all its amazing vastness and in- 
finite proportions. 

But surround the child with an environment so liable 
to come from the ficticious standard of money and he 
may grow to utterly hate all these good and lovable things. 

Hence the need as much in his civic relations in life 
as any other, of removing from him the great temptation, 
and surrounding him with influences that lead to the cul- 
tivation of the good that he naturally loves. 

To illustrate. Here is a criminal. Does he plunder 
and rob and commit murder, as a rule, because he loves 
to do such things? Certainly not. But for a considera- 
tion, which is generally money. Had Christ accepted the 
offer which was made Him in the wilderness, He would 
have done just what men to-day do when they make 
money their chief concern, as millions do, always have 
and always will so long as money, a false standard, remains 
the great, gross tempter, as the circulating medium of the 
world. 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 1 5 

Again, as to land ownership by private individuals, of 
which we hear so much of late, and which practically 
means money in the end, the same principle holds as 
that which holds in money as the circulating medium of 
the world. 

Why should any man or class of men claim owner- 
ship in land any more than they should claim the private 
ownership of the sea or the air? 

Surely there is sufficient land, as there is enough water 
and air in the world, for every member of the great 
fraternity of the human family ; and the Heavenly Father 
would certainly have every one of His children free to 
use each for his highest good as he might need them, 
as He would have all His children work together for the 
highest good of the whole, just as does the bee with 
every other bee of the whole hive of bees. 

Just as does the ant with the vast number of ants 
touching the whole great army of ants. 

Why should a few aristocrats of England claim to 
own most of the land of that country, and compel others 
to work for the increase of their already superfluous 
wealth or starve? 

Why should the same thing in any measure be true 
in this country, a Mrs. King, as one solitary instance, 
said to own 1,000,000 acres in Texas, while in New York 
City 10,000 people are huddled together on one single 
acre, not one foot of which they can call their own? 

Why should our representatives in Congress, without 
any authority from the people, give the railroad com- 
panies of this country as Dr. Gladden tells us, 215,000,000 
acres of public land, an area four times the size of the 
great state of Illinois, and six times as large as Ohio, 
while many towns, counties and municipalities have given 
them hundreds of millions of dollars in addition to this 
enormous gift of lands? 

Why is all this? There certainly is no justifiable reason 
why, but every reason to the contrary, would we right 
the gigantic wrongs that exist in the present woefully 
distorted and abominably wicked relations which the 
strong have imposed upon the weak, in the civic usages 
of the day, because of the abnormal customs noticed. 

The greed of the nations for land in nearly all ages 
of the world has been more or less like the sreed of men 



1 6 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

for money, the possibilities of money coming from the 
iand, being the primary incentive, and most of the wars 
between different nations having grown out of this. 

See how it is to-day. But a little while ago, China and 
Japan wanted Corea, and so they crossed swords, and 
sacrificed thousands of their young men on battle-fields. 

Spain wanted Cuba, and so she made her savage attacks 
upon a comparatively defenseless people and provoked 
the righteous indignation of all Christendom. 

England wanted the rich gold-fields of Venezuela and 
how quickly the powers that be in this country began 
to buckle on their fighting apparel, and grimly growl 
with a roar that could be heard around the world, Look 
out! look out! for we don't want you to have those pos- 
sessions, and we will sacrifice a million of our young men 
if need be and fill the land with bitter lamentation and 
woe sooner than allow it." 

All history abounds in contentions over the land ques- 
tion when the truth is that the land is God's as much as 
the ocean and the air, and no part of it belongs by right 
to any private individual only as he may need it, just as 
every other one of the mighty brotherhood needs it 
for meeting the common wants of life. 

And here is the place to touch upon a very dejicate 
point, but one that must not be passed entirely by. 

It is this. The woeful fact that there are yearly born 
in the city of New York, and doubtless the same is true 
in like ratio in other cities, many thousand illegitimate 
children, this deplorable state of things arising out of 
another fact in large measure, that many men and women 
have no home of their own and are able to support no 
such home as every man and every woman ought to have, 
or ought to be able to have such a home, and each one 
of this great army of men and women should be able to 
bear the sacred name of husband and wife so far as a 
removal of the hindrance noticed would allow it. 

Here is an awful truth, not apt to be proclaimed in 
very loud terms to the world, but nevertheless a truth 
that should be known, and a truth that should be under- 
stood as growing out of the evil in question much more 
largely than many imagine. 

Remove from the world the bogus standard which 
prevents many a man and many a woman from having such 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL \J 

a home, and themselves from being the honorable heads 
of a true household, and you would greatly help towards 
removing from the world the damnable thing of which I 
speak, but speak only in a loud whisper, the details of 
which can be treated here only in a very cursory way. 

"Home!" There's no place surely like it, and every 
man and every woman should be able to say "I have it, 
and am one of the joint head of a home, my home," the 
natural thing to have and to be, the natural way of it, 
God's way. 

But how is it? We read from a recent census report 
from Washington that the tenant families throughout the 
country are 63 per cent of the total number of families, 
by which it appears that only about one-third of the 
families of the United States have any sort of a title to 
the places in which they live. 

Even in the country, only about 34 families in a hun- 
dred own their own so-called homes, without any incum- 
brance. 

In 420 cities of 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants, there are 
only 24 families in a hundred that own their abodes with 
a clear title. 

In 28 cities of over 100,000 inhabitants, 77 hire their 
dwellings and only 13 in a hundred own them. 

In New York City, 6 per cent of the people are said 
to own all the real estate, and only 4 in a hundred own 
the houses in which they live, and thousands upon 
thousands have no homes whatever, which accounts largely 
for the children born without known parents or homes 
either. Of the inhabitants of Glasgow, Scotland, 25 per 
cent we are told, live in houses of only one room. 

And what is the cause of all this unequal state of 
things ? 

It comes largely, most assuredly, from the false stan- 
dard that has been set up, making possible such gigantic 
wrongs. 

Now I say, the Divine Master and sanctified common 
sense being my teachers, these things ought not so to 
be. If the great Father should speak in audible tones 
He would surely say to His children, in all the world, these 
things are wrong. There should be different rules in the 
civic relations between man and man. 



l8 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

Some of the advanced thinkers and writers and novel- 
ists like Mrs. Burton Harrison, Marion Crawford, Charles 
Dudley Warner, Sir Walter Besant, the advocates of the 
"Single Tax Theory," Dr. Abbott, Washington Gladden 
and many others, have said some grand things, and set 
forth some startling facts, but I do not see how any of 
their purposes can be attained till they attack the very 
citadel of the trouble, and reach the very heart of the 
difficulty, the abnormal, fictitious standard which has been 
set up for the world's following, an attempt to regulate 
society by a gross irregularity! 

Who can claim for a moment that any thing, the love 
of which is the root of all kinds of evil should be the 
circulating medium of the world? And how wrong it is 
to suppose that any thing through which there is a pos- 
sibility of acquiring in any such manner as we have seen 
more than belongs to one by the law of nature and the 
law of God, or allows such waste, or is liable to such 
fluctuations and trouble in business, can possibly be made 
the true standard, the genuine circulating medium of the 
world? 

No code of men-made rules, no long custom of past 
ages can make it thus. Indeed, speaking with all reverence, 
not even the Almighty himself can make it thus, and it is 
no weakness in Him not to be able to do impossibilities. 

Hence we say break down the false standard that has 
ruled the world so long in cruelty. Abolish the false cir- 
culating medium, the chief cause of so much distress 
through all the ages, and introduce the true standard, a 
thing of intrinsic value, subject to none of the evils no- 
ticed, and productive of good only. 

What can this be, is it asked? Show us the great 
panacea, is it said? 

Here it is. Work, Valuable Labor, Honest Industry, 
a thing of intrinsic value because it is absolutely essential 
to the sustenance of man's life in the world. 

Work was what the good Father said to His erring 
children in the Garden of Eden should be the standard, 
because without this, man must perish from the earth. "In 
the sweat of thy face," not with money, but "in the sweat 
of thy face," were the words, "shalt thou eat thy bread." 

Work was essential, and will continue to be essential so 
long as the thing exists that necessitated work in the first 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL IO, 

place. But it is asked, how can the work be divided up so 
as to suit the tastes and adaptability of everybody? 

How is it divided up now, let me ask in return? 

What thousands and millions even, under the present 
regime, are compelled to do, not what they would most 
like to do, but whatever they can get to do, however dis- 
tasteful it may be to them! 

It certainly could be no worse than it is now, and would 
in all reason be infinitely better. 

How about the kind of work for each one? — is asked 
by the skeptic, as to whether the present system could be 
improved, however monstrously unreasonable it may be, 
as I have abundantly shown? 

Well, give the scavengers and sewage workers and 
ditch and well diggers and all those doing such menial 
service fewer hours of labor, and put them on the retired 
list at an earlier date than those engaged in more congenial 
toil perchance. 

But again the question comes up, would you have 
everybody engaged in manual labor? 

Not necessarily, and yet it might not be amiss as a 
preparation for better service as teachers, preachers, in- 
ventors, scientists, statesmen and the like. 

David of old was a shepherd. 

Elisha was a farmer. 

Moses was a keeper of flocks in the land of Midian for 
40 years. 

Jesus Christ was a carpenter. 

The Apostles were fishermen. 

Paul was a tent maker. 

Washington was an agriculturist. 

Lincoln was a surveyor, a boatman on the river, and 
even a rail-splitter. 

Garfield was a mule-driver on the canal tow path for 
a time. 

Some of the most able and popular clergymen in the 
biggest cities of the land to-day came from early service 
in the country, behind the plow, at the forge, in the shop, 
or from the cobbler's bench. To tell the truth, just such 
kind of service for a time may be as valuable as the col- 
lege as a preparation for the very best work that man can 
do in the world, though this need not imply its absolute 
necessity to every one under the system here advocated. 



20 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

Work being the standard, useful work of some sort 
should be required of every one, and manual work for 
multitudes who have never dreamt of such a thing so far 
as they are concerned. 

When Mr. Rothschild, a member of perhaps the rich- 
est family on earth, was asked if riches led to happiness, 
he replied very emphatically "No, the truest source of 
happiness is Work," the very thing for which we plead as 
the standard in the civic life of men. 

Thomas Carlyle gave repeated emphasis to this ques- 
tion in the same way, as did Cicero of old, and Thomas 
More, and Ruskin, and Thorold Rogers, and Richard 
Jeffries, and Mathew Arnold, and Robert Blatchford, as 
well as many other deep thinkers and able writers. 

Thus it is easy to see that all the points of apparent 
difficulty at first thought in regard to the matter are of 
easy solution, and vastly preferable to thousands with 
which we have to cope at the present time. 

But alas! the controlling powers have been saying, 
"Yes, oh yes, for some men what you say about work for 
a part of the great family is true, is indeed needful, but for 
the mighty army of men and women, the favored 30,000 
for example, who possess all the money or may soon 
possess it all, it is not a necessity, and we will not eat our 
bread by the sweat of our faces. We will eat it by the 
sweat of other men's faces. 

"They may toil and groan and grind and grub early 
and late at starvation rates, wearing themselves out and 
dying long before their time, but we shall do nothing of 
the kind. 

"They may exhaust themselves in accumulating riches 
for us, and take for their pay the scraps and the crumbs of 
our leaving, and live in shacks and shanties, and dark for- 
lorn tenements, while we through their toils eat the tender 
loins of the fatted calves of the stall in our palatial homes, 
and ride in our gilded carriages, we, the Masters may, but 
they, the poor, are our slaves!" 

So is it. So it always has been and always will be so 
long as the false standard and the fictitious medium gov- 
ern the world as at present. 

Hence do we say remove such a counterfeit from the 
calendar of civic life, and adopt something of real practical 
intrinsic worth that can only result in good. 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 21 

That real something is Work in some form, of course 
in a just measure for every one of the great brotherhood 
of the race in every country, everywhere. 

This is the true standard, nature's standard, God's 
standard touching all the civic relations between man and 
man. 

Yes, make Work the medium, and let every one of the 
great household do his share of the same and receive his 
share of the profits and no more, and every one shall have 
all that he needs for his very highest happiness and man- 
hood possible. 

And what more is essential for any one? 

Nothing more. All beyond this is superfluous, a cum- 
brance. Worse than this, downright robbery, because it 
deprives others of their rights. Robbery, did I say? That 
is a very strong statement, involving tremendous respon- 
sibilities, woefully overlooked by the great world to-day. 

I wish to fortify the statement, for it's very radical, as 
my whole treatment of the subject may see to many, but 
if we are not here, as Dr. Blank tells us, and I believe 
him, "to preserve the existing order of things," we shall 
need to be radical beyond what many have dreamed as yet. 

The point in question expressed in another form is just 
like this. If I, or you, or all of us together, or a larger 
company than all of us, hold more of God's possessions 
than we are using for the promotion of our highest good, 
so that any member of the great brotherhood suffers from 
a lack of some of these possessions held by us, but not 
essential to our needs, we are guilty, and we stand con- 
demned before the tribunal of our Heavenly Father and 
the judgment of our injured brother. 

And would not the verdict be robbery? If not, I con- 
fess my inability to see why not. 

But let Work, not Money, but Work, be the standard 
of measurement in the civic world, and there would be no 
such trouble. 

But the cry, of course, is heard by a vast army of the 
brotherhood, "We know nothing of work. We were not 
born to it. Neither were our fathers before us, or their 
fathers before them. Make us work, would you?" No, 
we respond. No, indeed, we would make no man work, 
but we would say with the great inspired Apostle of old, 
"If any would not work, neither should he eat." 



22 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

If any one preferred to starve rather than do his share 
of the necessary work of the world, let him starve. 

Besides this, work, manual work, compared with what 
it now is, would be almost play, four hours a day on the 
average being ample to meet all the demands of the great 
brotherhood according to the estimates of those who have 
given the subject the most careful study, leaving twenty 
hours of the twenty-four for rest, reading, recreation, 
amusement, the cultivation of the mind, the fine arts, the 
college or university course, the beautiful, the philosophi- 
cal, the scientific, and whatever one might desire for a 
larger knowledge of the world, for inventions and discov- 
eries, and for bringing to light the hidden things of dark- 
ness. 

No, we would compel no one to work, any more than 
we would compel him to eat or wear comfortable clothing, 
or live in a house suited to his highest needs and most 
exalted manhood. 

As it now is, how pertinent are the words of Ruskin, 
when he says, "I never stand up to rest myself in the stalls 
of the theater and look around the house without the 
renewal of wonder how the crowd in the pit, the shilling 
gallery, allow us of the boxes and stalls to keep our places! 
think of it! Those fellows behind us there have housed 
us and fed us. 

"Their wives have washed our clothes and kept us 
tidy. 

"They have bought for us the best places. 

"They have brought us through the cold to these places, 
and there they sit behind us patiently seeing what they 
may. 

"There they pack themselves together, squeezed and 
distant behind our chairs, and we, their elect toys and pet 
puppets, oiled and varnished and incensed, lounge in front 
placidly, or for the greater part wearily and sickly con- 
templatively!" 

How apt and significant this comparison touching life 
in general between the rich and the poor! 

It is chiefly as a result of the false standard by which 
the world has been fooling itself through all the ages of 
the mighty past, and from which it has by no means 
recovered as yet. 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 23 

Indeed, we are very gravely told by some that the 
banishment of money from the body politic, and adopting 
a true standard, would destroy all noble aspirations and 
reduce man to a level almost with the brute. We are very 
gravely assured that everybody knows that civilization 
could not exist without money. 

Now I wish to say that everybody does not know any 
such thing! Nobody knows it, for it isn't true. 

What are the facts in the case? 

Is man by nature such a creature that he must be 
stimulated to everything that is grand and good, and that 
leads to the highest civilization by the glitter of gold as 
money, the love of which is the root of all kinds of evil? 

It's a libel against the race! 

Who have accomplished the most for the world? 

Is it the men and women whose ambition has been to 
accumulate money? 

Take the lady nurse at the seat of war as an illustration 
among thousands. You see her on the field of carnage 
after some battle caring for the dead and dying. You see 
her in the hospital binding up the wounds of men and 
administering to the wants of the sick and suffering, amid 
scenes of the most revolting and heart-rending character, 
patient, persevering, uncomplaining, spending wearisome 
days and sleepless nights for weeks and months, having 
left the home of refinement and luxury, where she was 
loved and petted and almost adored by those who knew 
her best, for these scenes of the most revolting and soul- 
sickening character, with no expectation of earthly glory 
to come to her as a reward for her God-like services in 
these charnel houses of suffering and death. 

And is money the incentive that prompts her? 

No, by no means. The whole world, even the degraded 
minions of avarice whose God is the Almighty Dollar, 
would unite in one loud acclaim. No! Ten thousand 
times No! 

Well, history abounds in such noble characters. 

Look at some of the greatest teachers, inventors, 
authors, missionaries and martyrs that the world has ever 
seen, and say if money was the incentive that moved them. 

Take the twelve Apostles, with Paul and Martin 
Luther, and Wesley, and Whitfield, and Galileo, and 
Bruno, and Socrates, and Milton, and Cromwell, and 



24 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

Washington, and Hampden, and Columbus, and our own 
noble Christian Scientist, Agassiz, who declined an urgent 
invitation from a famous Boston Bureau to lecture at 
$500 an hour in some of the big cities, to the high-toned 
people of the brown stone front houses, saying that he 
could not; he had no time to spend in making money. 

Multiply these instances by thousands of others as seen 
in the men and women of the past and the present, and 
you will find there is a vastly higher motive than anything 
connected with money that prompts them. 

And so of the noblest of the great brotherhood of the 
race in all ages of the world. Take our colleges and higher 
schools of learning, and are the men and women there 
engaged as teachers stimulated, as a rule, to toil as they 
do for the sake of money when many of them could earn 
ten fold more in some other calling? Take the grand 
workers in the slums of our cities, and who will pretend 
for a moment that money in any sense whatsoever is the 
stimulus that impels them. 

Take the missionaries in the wilds of Africa or the 
Isles of the sea, and how is it? 

Yes, all that is most brave and true and philanthropic 
and uplifting in the world is the product of an incentive 
utterly disconnected with money, and as money is a false 
standard and unnatural medium of exchange, and certain 
to lead to most of the crimes and wrongs that exist in the 
civic relations of men, it should be relegated to the rear, 
and be no longer tolerated as it now is. 

The true standard should be adopted, God's standard, 
nature's standard, and then every member of the great 
brotherhood would be fully remunerated and amply sup- 
plied for his share of service in the mighty world compact 
of justice and right between man and man. There would 
be no money and no wages, only the wages, all that one 
needs, coming from his doing his share of just what he 
ought to do if he would be a member of the great, loving, 
harmonious brotherhood. 

The industries of the State would be properly organ- 
ized. 

The products of the lands and the seas, as to food and 
all kinds of goods would be produced in sufficient quan- 
tities for all. Labor hours would be so arranged as to 
meet the best needs of the entire fraternity, and food, 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 25 

clothing - , fuel, transit, amusements, and all other things 
essential to man's highest wants, would be supplied so as 
to meet the requirements of one as much as another. 

Of course, to the aged and infirm, not able to contribute 
work, the medium of exchange, provision would be made, 
leaving no fear of the poorhouse or of the world's cold 
charities for themselves or their children, or the possibili- 
ties of a tramp life, or a lack of support and consequent 
suffering as it is with multitudes in this land, and multi- 
plied millions in the older countries of the world. 

Now I say, give the entire State the control of its own 
as suggested, and then every man and woman could have 
a good home of their own, and all the comforts of such a 
home, so as to promote, so far as home could do it, their 
highest welfare in every point of view. 

Yes, remove the false standard and erect in its place 
the true and proper standard, LABOR, or, more properly 
speaking, work, real, genuine work. 

Set the great army of men engaged in the various 
callings noticed, and among them hundreds of thousands 
of other men very like them, about something where every 
effort of every one would be of value to the great co- 
partnership of the race, and who could estimate the 
immense saving that would thus come out of what can 
now only be regarded as a tremendous waste through the 
blunder of the ages, to say nothing of the hardening effects 
of it upon the nature of man and a confirmation of the 
saying long ago uttered, "The root of all kinds of evil." 

Does any one say, "Nonsense! It can't be done?" 
Then I advise such a one to change places with his less 
fortunate brother for a little while. 

Try the life of a menial servant, half starved, and sub- 
jected to hunger and cold, wearing yourself out to accu- 
mulate riches and luxuries for him who was your servant, 
but is now a heartless aristocrat. 

Just for a few days try it, and then tell what you think 
about the justice of the case, you the slave now, he the 
master; you snubbed and maltreated and outraged in 
thousands of ways, and he plumed and petted, proud and 
tyrannical. 

I fancy it would take but little such experience to bring 
about a change of opinion. 

Or, take another illustration. 



26 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

Suppose you are forced to live in a very humble hired 
tenement, and everything else connected with your life is 
made to correspond to the same, and all this without any 
lack or fault on your part. Your neighbor just across the 
way lives in a beautiful mansion well furnished and all his 
home life corresponds to the same. You are poor. 

He is rich. 

You walk. 

He rides. 

You are clothed in the cheapest garments. 

He in the most costly. 

You stay at home. 

He journeys and goes and comes at his pleasure, lavish 
in his expenditure of money and everything else that con- 
tributes to his taste and pride. 

You have to practice the closest economy. 

He is grossly extravagant. 

You are held by your fellows as hardly of common- 
place importance in the community. 

He is highly honored and looked up to as a person of 
great consequence, simply because he has money. 

You are an educated and well-informed man. 

He is exceedingly ignorant. 

You live to serve your country and bless the commu- 
nity, and lift up the fallen and make them wiser and better 
and happier. 

He, your master now, has lived simply for himself. 

You are a real benefactor to your race. 

He is a miserable, selfish wretch. 

In short, you have done ten thousand times more for 
the world than he has, if indeed it can be said that he has 
ever done anything. 

You have produced several inventions of great service 
to mankind, and made wonderful discoveries, and estab- 
lished schools and churches in divers places where they 
were needed, and gladdened the hearts of many despond- 
ing ones, and caused them to sing aloud in the night time. 

He has done nothing of the sort. 

But you have very little of the material blessings of 
the world, while he abounds in them and has more than 
heart can wish. 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 2,"] 

Now all these earthly good things belong to the 
Heavenly Father, and you are both His children, both 
brothers. 

And would you believe, after an experience of this kind, 
that there had been an equal distribution of the Father's 
gifts between you and your neighbor, and that your Father 
was well pleased with the strange dissimilarity of the dis- 
tribution? 

You could not believe it. n 

Everybody knows better. 

It comes as the result of the false standard in the circu- 
lating medium of the world. 

And yet, some men who seem to be living far behind 
the times, and trying to hold back the car of progress 
which is slowly making its way up the steep hill difficulty, 
the moneyed men mostly will meet you with the howls of 
"Impossible," "Utopia," "Maudlin Pietism," "Chatterings 
of an unbalanced crank," "The survival of the Fittest," 
"Quackery," "Fakerism," and the like. 

Indeed, the words of our Lord are sometimes quoted, 
"The poor ye have always with you," and the like, as if 
Christ meant to be understood that there ought always to 
be a multitude of poor people in every community in the 
world almost. 

As if it had been so decreed! 

As if it was one of God's plans in the civic relations 
that should be established between man and man. 

But we cannot interpret the sayings of Christ in any 
such manner, though such interpretations are very like 
most of the reasoning employed in combating great 
wrongs that have always existed in the civic affairs of the 
world. 

But, as drowning men cling to straws, we must not 
wonder that so it is, and will continue to be thus, while a 
false standard like money as the circulating medium, holds 
such a prominent place among men. 

But, nevertheless, if such changes as are here suggested 
or their equivalent as to reform measures in the civic life 
of society are impossible, then anything like half way 
justice between the rich and the poor everywhere is im- 
possible, for there is no people on the face of the globe 
this very moment that does not need changes for the better 
that would surpass anything here suggested. 



28 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

If these, or what would lead to greater changes than 
these in the civic affairs of the state, are "Utopian," then 
the thought of the "Kingdom to come," foretold in God's 
word, is "Utopian." 

If they are the fruits of an "Iridescent Dream," or the 
wild "Vagaries of Maudlin Pietism," or the "Shrieks of 
An Unbalanced Tender Hearted Crank," then the Author 
of the Sermon on the Mount and His most devoted fol- 
lowers, many of whom have laid down their lives in the 
advocacy of the great principles of true love to God and 
man all through the ages for nearly two thousand years, 
must have been the same kind of weaklings that the men 
of to-day are, who plead for civic righteousness by the 
banishment from the body politic the false standard Money 
an the adoption of the true standard Work. 

We must remember that we cannot make a truth from 
a lie any more than we can make an angel of a devil, and 
what is a devil and a lie if money as a circulating medium 
is not a false standard, leading to most of the evils which 
we all so much deplore? 

But, no, again says the objector; you are ahead of your 
time. 

It is not money, but the love of money that leads to 
these great evils of the world. 

Ah! indeed. Could that be said of work? 

No, assuredly, for the greater the love of work the 
better. 

But, then, verily, as long as the love of money is almost 
if not always sure to go with the desire for it, or the pos- 
session of it, it is surely safe to say that money itself is 
indeed a dangerous thing so long as it is made the standard 
as we have seen. 

As gunpowder surrounded with flames of fire, or tor- 
pedoes and bombs burning and bursting are dangerous, 
so is money held as the representative of what it now is, 
a dangerous thing. 

To retain it as the world's medium of circulation is a 
gigantic, an unpardonable wrong, when service, work, 
a thing of intrinsic value is wholly free from the evils in 
question, and is a real substantial blessing always and 
everywhere. 



THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 20, 

So, then, it is not simply the love of money against 
which we contend, but the possibility of fostering such 
love by giving it the place which it now holds in the civic 
relations of the world. 

"Lead us not into temptation," was a part of the prayer 
of our Lord, and the wise man of old said, touching this 
very matter of temptation, "Go not in the way of evil, 
avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away." 

Not that I claim for a moment that banishing from 
society a false standard like the one in question and adopt- 
ing a true one in the civic relations between man and man 
would make every one a saint of the most exalted character, 
any more than banishing the saloon from community 
would make every one just what he ought to be, a true, 
devoted, pure, renovated child of God. 

As to the latter it certainly would not do this, though 
it would keep most of the people from the drunkard's ranks 
and make most of them sober, industrious respectable 
useful members of society, an almost infinite improvement 
above what follows in the wake of the saloon. 

The temptation removed, and such are the blessed fruits 
of the removal. 

Just so with money. The temptation removed, by its 
removal from community as the medium of exchange now 
held, and alike good results would surely follow; not the 
renewed heart necessarily in this case any more than in the 
other, but the prevention of uncounted wrongs and crimes, 
and the promotion of corresponding good. 

True, the reform proposed is so very radical that many 
are ready to say at first thought, "It is impossible." 

Still that does not alter the truth, for truth, according 
to the old maxim, is forever immortal and will prevail. 

The working classes of the world are even now organ- 
izing themselves into an international party for the purpose 
of doing away once and forever with the capitalist system 
based on money and mastery, and establishing in its stead 
a collectivist system based on labor and brotherhood. By 
the working classes are meant not only those who labor 
with their hands, but those who labor with their brains as 
well. 

It is true that as long as the capitalists are our rulers, 
human selfishness will prevent the present system from 
being radically changed. 



30 THE ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL 

But the capitalists are reallv a small and weak minority, 
and it is only because the workers ignorantly vote against 
their own interests that the rule of money continues for 
a day. 

The workers are beginning to realize the situation, and 
the result is a world-wide class struggle, which can only 
end in the overthrow of capitalism and the setting up of 
the kingdom of heaven, — the republic of the brotherhood 
of man. 

The socialist movement has been called atheistic, but 
the only god it denies is the travesty of God which has 
been set up by the ruling class to justify its tyranny and 
oppression. 

Socialism does appeal to the natural desires of men to 
have their share of the good things of earth, but its aim is 
to rebuild society in such a way that those who obey the 
teachings of Jesus may no longer be punished for so doing 
by hunger and death, but that these teachings may become 
the common rule of life. 

In the great political struggle that is nearer than many 
of us dream, those who really believe in the teachings of 
Jesus will be in the ranks of the Socialists, helping to 
hasten the coming of the new order. 

Yes, I am sure that the change for which I plead should, 
and some time will, be made, and the proper standard be 
adopted, when the world comes to understand more fully 
the significance of the terms so often used in these days, 
"The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man," 
which implies, among other things, "civic righteousness," 
satisfactory to the Great Father, and each of His loyal and 
loving children. 

STEWART SHELDON, 

1506 West Street, 

Topeka, Kansas. 



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